Bible Commentaries

David's arrival in the camp, and wish to fight with Goliath. - David had been dismissed by Saul at that time, and having returned home,he was feeding his father's sheep once more (1 Samuel 17:12-15). Now, when theIsraelites were standing opposite to the Philistines, and Goliath wasrepeating his challenge every day, David was sent by his father into thecamp to bring provisions to his three eldest brothers, who were serving inSaul's army, and to inquire as to their welfare (1 Samuel 17:16-19). He arrived whenthe Israelites had placed themselves in battle array; and running to hisbrethren in the ranks, he saw Goliath come out from the ranks of thePhilistines, and heard his words, and also learned from the mouth of anIsraelite what reward Saul would give to any one who would defeat thisPhilistine (1 Samuel 17:20-25). He then inquired more minutely into the matter; andhaving thereby betrayed his own intention of trying to fight with him (1 Samuel 17:26, 1 Samuel 17:27), he was sharply reproved by his eldest brother in consequence (1 Samuel 17:28, 1 Samuel 17:29). He did not allow this to deter him, however, but turned to anotherwith the same question, and received a similar reply (1 Samuel 17:30); whereuponhis words were told to the king, who ordered David to come before him (1 Samuel 17:31).

This is, in a condensed form, the substance of the section, whichintroduces the conquest of Goliath by David in the character of anepisode. This first heroic deed was of the greatest importance to Davidand all Israel, for it was David's first step on the way to the throne, towhich Jehovah had resolved to raise him. This explains the fulness andcircumstantiality of the narrative, in which the intention is very apparentto set forth most distinctly the marvellous overruling of all thecircumstances by God himself. And this circumstantiality of the account isclosely connected with the form of the narrative, which abounds inrepetitions, that appear to us tautological in many instances, but whichbelong to the characteristic peculiarities of the early Hebrew style ofhistorical composition.

(Note: On account of these repetitions and certain apparentdifferences, the lxx (Cod. Vat.) have omitted the section from 1 Samuel 17:12 to 1 Samuel 17:31, and also that from 1 Samuel 17:55 to 1 Samuel 18:5; and on the groundof this omission, Houbigant, Kennicott, Michaelis, Eichhorn, Dathe,Bertheau, and many others, have pronounced both these sectionslater interpolations; whereas the more recent critics, such as DeWette, Thenius, Ewald, Bleek, Stähelin, and others, reject thehypothesis that they are interpolations, and infer from the supposeddiscrepancies that 1 Samuel 17 and 18 were written by some one who wasignorant of the facts mentioned in 1 Samuel 16, and was altogether adifferent person from the author of this chapter. According to 1 Samuel 16:21., they say, David was Saul's armour-bearer already, and hisfamily connections were well known to the king, whereas, accordingto 1 Samuel 17:15, David was absent just at the time when he ought asarmour-bearer to have been in attendance upon Saul; whilst in 1 Samuel 17:33 he is represented as a shepherd boy who was unaccustomed tohandle weapons, and as being an unauthorized spectator of the war,and, what is still more striking, even his lineage is represented in 1 Samuel 17:55. as unknown both to Abner and the king. Moreover, in 1 Samuel 17:12 the writer introduces a notice concerning Davidwith which the reader must be already well acquainted from 1 Samuel 16:5., and which is therefore, to say the least, superfluous; and in 1 Samuel 17:54 Jerusalem is mentioned in a manner which does not quiteharmonize with the history, whilst the account of the manner inwhich he disposed of Goliath's armour is apparently at variance with 1 Samuel 21:9. But the notion, that the sections in question areinterpolations that have crept into the text, cannot be sustained onthe mere authority of the Septuagint version; since the arbitrarymanner in which the translators of this version made omissions oradditions at pleasure is obvious to any one. Again, the assertion thatthese sections cannot well be reconciled with 1 Samuel 16, and emanatedfrom an author who was unacquainted with the history in 1 Samuel 16, isoverthrown by the unquestionable reference to 1 Samuel 16 which we findin 1 Samuel 16:12, “David the son of that Ephratite,” - where Jerome hascorrectly paraphrased הזּה, de quo supra dictum est- and alsoby the remark in 1 Samuel 16:15, that David went backwards and forwards fromSaul to feed his father's sheep in Bethlehem. Neither of these can bepronounced interpolations of the compiler, unless the fact can beestablished that the supposed discrepancies are really well founded. But it by no means follows, that because Saul loved David on accountof the beneficial effect which is playing upon the harp produced uponhis mind, and appointed him his armour-bearer, therefore David hadreally to carry the king's armour in time of war. The appointment ofarmour-bearer was nothing more than conferring upon him the titleof aide-de-camp, from which it cannot be inferred that David hadalready become well known to the king through the performance ofwarlike deeds. If Joab, the commander-in-chief, had ten armour-bearers (2 Samuel 18:15, compare 1 Samuel 23:37), king Saul wouldcertainly have other armour-bearers besides David, and such as werewell used to war. Moreover, it is not stated anywhere in 1 Samuel 16 thatSaul took David at the very outset into his regular and permanentservice, but, according to 1 Samuel 16:22, he merely asked his father Jesse thatDavid might stand before him, i.e., might serve him; and there is nocontradiction in the supposition, that when his melancholy left himfor a time, he sent David back to his father to Bethlehem, so that onthe breaking out of the war with the Philistines he was living at homeand keeping sheep, whilst his three eldest brothers had gone to thewar. The circumstance, however, that when David went to fight withGoliath, Saul asked Abner his captain, “Whose son is this youth?” andAbner could give no explanation to the king, so that after the defeatof Goliath, Saul himself asked David, “Whose son art thou?” (1 Samuel 17:55-58), can hardly be comprehended, if all that Saul wanted to ascertainwas the name of David's father. For even if Abner had not troubledhimself about the lineage of Saul's harpist, Saul himself could not wellhave forgotten that David was a son of the Bethlehemite Jesse. Butthere was much more implied in Saul's question. It was not the nameof David's father alone that he wanted to discover, but what kind ofman the father of a youth who possessed the courage to accomplishso marvellous a heroic deed really was; and the question was put notmerely in order that he might grant him an exemption of his housefrom taxes as the reward promised for the conquest of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:25), but also in all probability that he might attach such a man to hiscourt, since he inferred from the courage and bravery of the son theexistence of similar qualities in the father. It is true that David merelyreplied, “The son of thy servant Jesse of Bethlehem;” but it is veryevident from the expression in 1 Samuel 18:1, “when he had made anend of speaking unto Saul,” that Saul conversed with him still furtherabout his family affairs, since the very words imply a lengthenedconversation. The other difficulties are very trivial, and will beanswered in connection with the exposition of the passages inquestion.)

1 Samuel 17:12-15

1 Samuel 17:12-15 are closely connected with the preceding words,“All Israel was alarmed at the challenge of the Philistine; but David the sonof that Ephratite (Ephratite, as in 1:1-2) of Bethlehem in Judah,whose name was Jesse,” etc. The verb and predicate do not follow till 1 Samuel 17:15; so that the words occur here in the form of an anacolouthon. Thetraditional introduction of the verb היה between ודוד and בּן־אישׁ (David was the son of that Ephratite) is botherroneous and misleading. If the words were to be understood in this way,היה could no more be omitted here than היתה in 2 Chronicles 22:3, 2 Chronicles 22:11. The true explanation is rather, that 1 Samuel 17:12-15 form oneperiod expanded by parentheses, and that the historian lost sight of theconstruction with which he commenced in the intermediate clauses; so thathe started afresh with the subject ודוד in 1 Samuel 17:15, and proceededwith what he had to say concerning David, doing this at the same time insuch a form that what he writes is attached, so far as the sense ifconcerned, to the parenthetical remarks concerning Jesse's eldest sons. To bring out distinctly the remarkable chain of circumstances by whichDavid was led to undertake the conflict with Goliath, he links on to thereference to his father certain further notices respecting David's family andhis position at that time. Jesse had eight sons and was an old man in thetime of Saul. באנשׁים בּא, “come among the weak.”אנשׁים generally means, no doubt, people or men. But thismeaning does not give any appropriate sense here; and the suppositionthat the word has crept in through a slip of the pen for בּשּׁנים,is opposed not only by the authority of the early translators, all of whomread אנשׁים, but also by the circumstance that the expression בּשּׁנים בּוא does not occur in the whole of the OldTestament, and that ביּמים בּוא alone is used with thissignification.

1 Samuel 17:13-14

“The three great (i.e., eldest) sons of Jesse had gone behindSaul into the war.” הלכוּ, which appears superfluous after theforegoing ויּלכוּ, has been defended by Böttcher, as necessaryto express the pluperfect, which the thought requires, since the imperfectconsec. ויּלכוּ, when attached to a substantive and participialclause, merely expresses the force of the aorist. Properly, therefore, itreads thus: “And then (in Jesse's old age) the three eldest sons followed,had followed, Saul;” a very ponderous construction indeed, but quitecorrect, and even necessary, with the great deficiency of forms, to expressthe pluperfect. The names of these three sons agree with 1 Samuel 16:6-9,whilst the third, Shammah, is called Shimeah (שׁמעה) in 2 Samuel 13:3, 2 Samuel 13:32, שׁמעי in 2 Samuel 21:21, and שׁמעא in 1 Chronicles 2:13; 1 Chronicles 20:7.

1 Samuel 17:15

“But David was going and returning away from Saul:” i.e., hewent backwards and forwards from Saul to feed his father's sheep inBethlehem; so that he was not in the permanent service of Saul, but at thatvery time was with his father. The latter is to be supplied from thecontext.

1 Samuel 17:16-17

The Philistine drew near (to the Israelitish ranks) morningand evening, and stationed himself for forty days (in front of them). Thisremark continues the description of Goliath's appearance, and introducesthe account which follows. Whilst the Philistine was coming out every dayfor forty days long with his challenge to single combat, Jesse sent his sonDavid into the camp. “Take now for thy brethren this ephah of parchedgrains (see Leviticus 23:13), and these ten loaves, and bring them quickly intothe camp to thy brethren.”

1 Samuel 17:18

“And these ten slices of soft cheese (so the ancient versionsrender it) bring to the chief captain over thousand, and visit thy brethrento inquire after their welfare, and bring with you a pledge from them” - apledge that they are alive and well. This seems the simplest explanation ofthe word ערבּתם, of which very different renderings weregiven by the early translators.

1 Samuel 17:19

“But Saul and they (the brothers), and the whole of the men ofIsrael, are in the terebinth valley,” etc. This statement forms part of Jesse'swords.

1 Samuel 17:20-21

In pursuance of this commission, David went in the morningto the waggon-rampart, when the army, which was going out (of the camp)into battle array, raised the war-cry, and Israel and the Philistines placedthemselves battle-array against battle-array. וגו והחיל is acircumstantial clause, and the predicate is introduced with והרעוּ, as וגו והחיל is placed at the head absolutely: “and asfor the army which, etc., it raised a shout.” בּמּלחמה הרע, lit. tomake a noise in war, i.e., to raise a war-cry.

1 Samuel 17:22

David left the vessels with the provisions in the charge of thekeeper of the vessels, and ran into the ranks to inquire as to the health ofhis brethren.

1 Samuel 17:23

Whilst he was talking with them, the champion (middle-man)Goliath drew near, and spoke according to those words (the wordscontained in 1 Samuel 17:8.), and David heard it. פל ממּערות is probably anerror for פל ממּערכות (Keri, lxx, Vulg.; cf. 1 Samuel 17:26). If theChethibh were the proper reading, it would suggest an Arabic wordsignifying a crowd of men (Dietrich on Ges. Lex.).

1 Samuel 17:24-25

All the Israelites fled from Goliath, and were so afraid. They said (ישׂראל אישׁ is a collective noun), “Have yeseen this man who is coming? (הרּאיתם, with Dagesh dirim as in 1 Samuel 10:24. Surely to defy Israel is he coming; and whoever shall slay him,the king will enrich him with great wealth, and give him his daughter, andmake his father's house (i.e., his family) free in Israel,” viz., from taxes andpublic burdens. There is nothing said afterwards about the fulfilment ofthese promises. But it by no means follows from this, that the statementis to be regarded as nothing more than an exaggeration, that had grown upamong the people, of what Saul had really said. There is al| the lessprobability in this, from the fact that, according to 1 Samuel 17:27, the peopleassured him again of the same thing. In all probability Saul had actuallymade some such promises as these, but did not feel himself bound to fulfilthem afterwards, because he had not made them expressly to Davidhimself.

1 Samuel 17:26-27

When David heard these words, he made more minuteinquiries from the bystanders about the whole matter, and dropped somewords which gave rise to the supposition that he wanted to go and fightwith this Philistine himself. This is implied in the words, “For who is thePhilistine, this uncircumcised one (i.e., standing as he does outside thecovenant with Jehovah), that he insults the ranks of the living God!”whom he has defied in His army. “He must know,” says the BerleburgerBible, “that he has not to do with men, but with God. With a living God hewill have to do, and not with an idol.”

1 Samuel 17:28

David's eldest brother was greatly enraged at his talking thuswith the men, and reproved David: “Why hast thou come down (fromBethlehem, which stood upon high ground, to the scene of the war), andwith whom hast thou left those few sheep in the desert?” “Those fewsheep,” the loss of only one of which would be a very great loss to ourfamily. “I know thy presumption, and the wickedness of thy heart; forthou hast come down to look at the war;” i.e., thou art not contented withthy lowly calling, but aspirest to lofty things; it gives thee pleasure to lookupon bloodshed. Eliab sought for the splinter in his brother's eye, and wasnot aware of the beam in his own. The very things with which he chargedhis brother - presumption and wickedness of heart - were most apparent inhis scornful reproof.

1 Samuel 17:29-30

David answered very modestly, and so as to put the scorn ofhis reprover to shame: “What have I done, then? It was only a word” - avery allowable inquiry certainly. He then turned from him (Eliab) toanother who was standing by; and having repeated his previous words, hereceived the same answer from the people.

1 Samuel 17:31

David's words were told to Saul, who had him sent forimmediately.

1 Samuel 17:32-40

David's resolution to fight with Goliath; and his equipmentfor the conflict. - 1 Samuel 17:32. When in the presence of Saul, David said, “Let noman's heart (i.e., courage) fail on his account (on account of the Philistine,about whom they had been speaking): thy servant will go and fight withthis Philistine.”

1 Samuel 17:33-35

To Saul's objection that he, a mere youth, could not fightwith this Philistine, a man of war from his youth up, David replied, that asa shepherd he had taken a sheep out of the jaws of a lion and a bear, andhad also slain them both. The article before ארי and דּוב points out these animals as the well-known beasts of prey. By theexpression ואת־הדּוב the bear is subordinated to the lion, or ratherplaced afterwards, as something which came in addition to it; so that את is to be taken as a nota accus. (vid., Ewald, §277, a), though it is notto be understood as implying that the lion and the bear went together insearch of prey. The subordination or addition is merely a logical one: notonly the lion, but also the bear, which seized the sheep, did David slay. זה, which we find in most of the editions since the time of Jac. Chayim, 1525, is an error in writing, or more correctly in hearing, for שׂה, a sheep. “And I went out after it; and when it rose up against me, Iseized it by its beard, and smote it, and killed it.” זקן, beardand chin, signifies the bearded chin. Thenius proposes, though withoutany necessity, to alter בּזקנו into בּגרונו, for the simplebut weak reason, that neither lions nor bears have any actual beard. Wehave only to think, for example, of the λῖς ἠυγένειος in Homer (Il. xv. 275, xvii. 109), or the barbam vellere mortuo leoni of Martial (x. 9). Evenin modern times we read of lions having been killed by Arabs with a stick(see Rosenmüller, Bibl. Althk. iv. 2, pp. 132-3). The constant use of thesingular suffix is sufficient to show, that when David speaks of the lionand the bear, he connects together two different events, which took placeat different times, and then proceeds to state how he smote both the oneand the other of the two beasts of prey.

1 Samuel 17:36-38

“Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear; and thePhilistine, this uncircumcised one, shall become like one of them (i.e., thesame thing shall happen to him as to the lion and the bear), because he hasdefied the ranks of the living God.” “And,” he continued (1 Samuel 17:37), “the Lordwho delivered me out of the hand (the power) of the lion and the bear, hewill deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” David's courage rested,therefore, upon his confident belief that the living God would not let Hispeople be defied by the heathen with impunity. Saul then desired for himthe help of the Lord in carrying out his resolution, and bade him put on hisown armour-clothes, and bird on his armour. מדּיו (his clothes)signifies probably a peculiar kind of clothes which were worn under thearmour, a kind of armour-coat to which the sword was fastened.

1 Samuel 17:39-40

When he was thus equipped with brazen helmet, coat ofmail, and sword, David began to walk, but soon found that he could donothing with these. He therefore said to Saul, “I cannot go in these things,for I have not tried them;” and having taken them off, he took hisshepherd's staff in his hand, sought out five smooth stones from thebrook-valley, and put them in the shepherd's thing that he had, namely hisshepherd's bag. He then took the sling in his hand, and went up to thePhilistine. In the exercise of his shepherd's calling he may have become soskilled in the use of the sling, that, like the Benjaminites mentioned in Judges 20:16, he could sling at a hair's-breadth, and not miss.

1 Samuel 17:41-54

David and Goliath: fall of Goliath, and flight of thePhilistines. - 1 Samuel 17:41. The Philistine came closer and closer to David.

1 Samuel 17:42-44

When he saw David, “he looked at him, and despised him,”i.e., he looked at him contemptuously, because he was a youth (as in 1 Samuel 16:12); “and then said to him, Am I a dog, that thou comest to mewith sticks?” (the plural מקלות is used in contemptuousexaggeration of the armour of David, which appeared so thoroughly unfitfor the occasion); “and cursed David by his God (i.e., making use of thename of Jehovah in his cursing, and thus defying not David only, but theGod of Israel also), and finished with the challenge, Come to me, and I willgive thy flesh to the birds of heaven and the beasts of the field” (to eat). Itwas with such threats as these that Homer's heroes used to defy oneanother (vid., Hector's threat, for example, in Il. xiii. 831-2).

1 Samuel 17:45-47

David answered this defiance with bold, believing courage:“Thou comest to me with sword, and javelin, and lance; but I come to theein the name of the Lord of Saboath, the God of the ranks of Israel, whomthou hast defied. This day will Jehovah deliver thee into my hand; and Ishall smite thee, and cut off thine head, and give the corpse of the army ofthe Philistines to the birds this day … And all the world shall learn thatIsrael hath a God; and this whole assembly shall discover that Jehovahbringeth deliverance (victory) not by sword and spear: for war belongethto Jehovah, and He will give you into our hand.” Whilst Goliath boasted ofhis strength, David founded his own assurance of victory upon theAlmighty God of Israel, whom the Philistine had defied. פּגר is tobe taken collectively. לישׂראל אלהים ישׁ doesnot mean “God is for Israel,” but “Israel hath a God,” so that Elohim is ofcourse used here in a pregnant sense. This God is Jehovah; war is his, i.e.,He is the Lord of war, who has both war and its results in His power.

1 Samuel 17:48-49

When the Philistines rose up, drawing near towards David(קם and ילך simply serve to set forth the occurrencein a more pictorial manner), David hastened and ran to the battle array tomeet him, took a stone out of his pocket, hurled it, and hit the Philistineon his temples, so that the stone entered them, and Goliath fell upon hisface to the ground.

1 Samuel 17:50-51

1 Samuel 17:50 contains a remark by the historian with reference to theresult of the conflict: “Thus was David stronger than the Philistine, with asling and stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him without a sword inhis hand.” And then in 1 Samuel 17:51 the details are given, namely, that David cutoff the head of the fallen giant with his own sword. Upon the downfall oftheir hero the Philistines were terrified and fled; whereupon the Israelitesrose up with a cry to pursue the flying foe, and pursued them “to a valley,and to the gates of Ekron.” The first place mentioned is a very strikingone. The “valley” cannot mean the one which divided the two armies,according to 1 Samuel 17:3, not only because the article is wanting, but still morefrom the facts themselves. For it is neither stated, nor really probable, thatthe Philistines had crossed that valley, so as to make it possible to pursuethem into it again. But if the word refers to some other valley, it seemsvery strange that nothing further should be said about it. Both thesecircumstances render the reading itself, ניא, suspicious, and give greatprobability to the conjecture that ניא is only a copyist's error for Gath,which is the rendering given by the lxx, especially when taken inconnection with the following clause, “to Gath and to Ekron” (1 Samuel 17:52).

1 Samuel 17:52

“And wounded of the Philistines fell on the way to Shaaraim,and to Gath and to Ekron.” Shaaraim is the town of Saarayim, in thelowland of Judah, and has probably been preserved in the Tell KefrZakariya (see at Joshua 15:36). On Gath and Ekron, see at Joshua 13:3.

1 Samuel 17:53

After returning from the pursuit of the flying foe, the Israelitesplundered the camp of the Philistines. אהרי דּלק, topursue hotly, as in Genesis 31:36.

1 Samuel 17:54

But David took the head of Goliath and brought it to Jerusalem,and put his armour in his tent. אהל is an antiquated term for adwelling-place, as in 1 Samuel 4:10; 1 Samuel 13:2, etc. The reference is to David'shouse at Bethlehem, to which he returned with the booty after the defeatof Goliath, and that by the road which ran past Jerusalem, where he leftthe head of Goliath. There is no anachronism in these statements; for theassertion made by some, that Jerusalem was not yet in the possession ofthe Israelites, rests upon a confusion between the citadel of Jebus uponZion, which was still in the hands of the Jebusites, and the city ofJerusalem, in which Israelites had dwelt for a long time (see at Joshua 15:63,and Judges 1:8). Nor is there any contradiction between this statement and 1 Samuel 21:9, where Goliath's sword is said to have been preserved in thetabernacle at Nob: for it is not affirmed that David kept Goliath's armourin his own home, but only that he took it thither; and the supposition thatGoliath's sword was afterwards deposited by him in the sanctuary inhonour of the Lord, is easily reconcilable with this. Again, the statement in1 Samuel 18:2, to the effect that, after David's victory over Goliath, Saul didnot allow him to return to his father's house any more, is by no means atvariance with this explanation of the verse before us. For the statement inquestion must be understood in accordance with 1 Samuel 17:15, viz., assignifying that from that time forward Saul did not allow David to returnto his father's house to keep the sheep as he had done before, and by nomeans precludes his paying brief visits to Bethlehem.